


Blowing on Embers

by thesecretdoor



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Camping, Implied/Referenced Underage, M/M, Photographs, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 08:31:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretdoor/pseuds/thesecretdoor
Summary: Even though the flame was almost out, all it took was a little careful tending to bring it back to life.





	Blowing on Embers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Michiru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Michiru/gifts).



> Dear Micchan, you're going to know exactly who wrote this by like the second paragraph but I really hope you enjoy it even without the mystery! I wanted to try for a nice, happy, fluffy camping trip but alas...angst happened. I actually wanted to try for so many different things in this that it came out kind of jumbled thematically but hopefully there are enough little snippets that you like to make it worthwhile!

It’s never been easy for the four of them to find time off together so it’s nothing short of a miracle to find themselves with not only one, but two days off together, especially with Keito studying abroad now. The fact that the time off also falls perfectly in line with Chinen’s birthday makes Yamada think it’s maybe more than a lucky coincidence.

Coincidence or not, he has no complaints about it as he shoves his duffel bag into the back of Yuto’s minivan beside the tents, sleeping bags and enough food to feed a small army – even if the weather forecast has predicted rain for most of the three hour drive to Nagano.

Chinen is checking the weather again as Yamada climbs into the middle row of seats beside him. “The temperature will drop below zero when it gets dark around four, if the rain keeps up we might even get snow.” he says far too gleefully.

Yamada glances back at the supplies in the back of the van and hopes they have enough blankets. He’s not entirely sure that a winter camping trip is advisable with just the four of them – with no guide to help them this time they may well die out there. When he turns back to face the front he catches Yuto watching him in the rear-view mirror, his eyebrows raise knowingly and there’s amusement in his voice as he assures Yamada “We picked a campsite with a central lodge, if things get hairy we can always take shelter there. I have been practising lighting fires though, and with Yama-chan to cook for us, I’m sure we’ll be just fine.”

Any other reassurances he might have had lined up are pushed aside by Keito’s eager interjection from the passenger seat “What are we having for dinner anyway? Please tell me we’re trying the chicken thing again? It’s my Thanksgiving vacation you know? Back in America I would have been sitting down to Thanksgiving Turkey right about now.”

After so long without it, just the sound of Keito’s voice is soothing so Yamada is content enough to rest his head back against the headrest and listen to Keito’s tales of America and Chinen’s recounts of everything Keito has missed since his last visit months ago.

He didn’t think he was dozing, he didn’t plan to at least, but when the minivan rolls to halt and the engine cuts, he feels himself dragged back to wakefulness. “Huh?” he says eloquently.

“Bathroom break.” Yuto explains, his eyes once again meeting Yamada’s in the rear-view mirror. “And time for a driver change too.” he continues, his voice now directed at Keito seated beside him.

Yamada gets out to stretch his legs, they can’t have been travelling long, and it’s not like he isn’t used to travelling long distances in cramped minivans, but the rain has eased off and there’s a shred of sunlight trying desperately to peek through the clouds. For a service station the view isn’t too bad either, a line of tall bare trees almost hide the industrial buildings and roadways behind them and off to the side there’s a grassy area with a small playground set and some colourful beds of winter blooming flowers.

He’s barely slid the door of the minivan closed behind him before Yuto is passing by, camera in his hand at the ready. He follows Yuto over to where he’s crouched on the drenched grass, camera angled to frame a magenta winter peony with the rainbow that’s shimmering faintly in the sky behind it.

“Pretty” Yamada comments idly, still feeling only half awake.

“Makes all that rain worth it.” Yuto says agreeably, and then he twists a little to point the camera in Yamada’s direction instead.

Yamada humours him with a couple of casual poses, lets him get a few different angles and he feels the way his lips spread into a smile, not in that reflex way that they do at work, but in the natural way they only seem to do in front of a camera when Yuto is the one behind it. “Alright.” he says eventually though, fighting back the smile. “It’ll be midnight by the time we get to Nagano at this rate.”

Keito is already sitting in the drivers seat as they cross the asphalt back to the minivan, Chinen mumbling something about ‘so much for snow’ as he climbs into the front beside him. 

As the minivan roars into life and pulls out of the parking lot, back into the late morning traffic, Yamada feels his eyes drooping again. He turns to the side a little to get more comfortable and watches Yuto flick through the photos on his camera. He watches as Yuto lingers on a particular one, sees the slight hitch in Yuto’s breath as he runs the pad of his thumb over the screen, his awed eyes drinking it in as a bittersweet smile turns up just the very corner of his mouth. It’s a look Yamada knows well, one he sees all too often when Yuto lets the mask slip. It’s an expression he recognises from his own face in some distant past, back when he thought Yuto was the world too.

It's that Yuto from his past that he dreams of when his eyes slide closed again. Crooked teeth and a wide smile that was never forced or sad. He dreams of playing childish games behind the stage at NHK Hall and seeking comfort in Yuto’s bed when they were miles away from home and he felt scared and homesick.

He wakes with a start just as the pictures in his mind twist and change, a PV set and a last minute choreography change, the day he took Yuto’s smile away.

The Yuto in front of him is smiling, it’s that sad longing one but he forces it into something brighter as Yamada’s eyes open fully. “We’re almost there.” Yuto tells him as they continue down a dirt path, the minivan rocking slightly over the bumpy surface, shaking the memories from his mind. 

They arrive a little after one, stopping just long enough to wolf down the bentos Keito picked up for them at the service station before setting about unloading the minivan. Yamada and Yuto are in charge of the food so together they start pulling out cooler boxes and pots and pans in a variety of sizes while Chinen and Keito start unpacking the tents and sleeping bags.

"Hey wait..." Chinen's voice rings out, unamused as he makes his third trip back to the minivan. "There are only two tents."

"What? Did you want to spend _all_ afternoon putting up tents?” Keito asks, entirely unconcerned. “Besides, it’d be even colder through the night in individual tents.”

Chinen gives him a look of contempt from around the side of the minivan. “Are you talking about body heat?” he asks, his tone dripping with distaste. “Because I saw that movie with the gay cowboys and when I said the four of us should go camping that wasn't what I had in mind.”

“Relax, there’s four sleeping bags.” Keito tells him with a snort “Also, why have you seen Brokeback Mountain?”

Thankfully Yuto decides it’s time he and Yamada went to fetch some wood to get the fire going - thankfully, because Yamada doesn’t really want to explain why he bribed Chinen with sushi to go and see that particular movie with him. It wasn’t about the gay sex, he can watch porn anytime he wants now that Chinen has taught him the internet, he just has an inexplicable affinity for tragic, forbidden love stories is all. 

It takes most of the afternoon to get their camp set up, not least because Yamada and Yuto have to pause in their quest for firewood to help with the tents because Chinen is too stubborn to use the instructions and Keito keeps managing to hammer his thumb instead of tent pegs.

Once they’re up though, Yamada sends the rest of them off to collect more firewood, leaving him in peace to start roughly chopping vegetables and season chicken. 

By the time it’s ready, darkness is starting to settle in, the bright ribbon of orange along what little of the horizon they can see between the trees giving way to cerise then violet then navy. With the changing colours comes the settling of cold air around them, the steam from their yakisoba drifting and mixing with their fog of their breaths as they start rummaging around in their bags for extra layers and hats – Yamada went with earmuffs, because he knew he’d be mocked for bringing hairstyling products on a camping trip, but he claims it’s in case Keito is going to sing again this time.

Keito does sing. It’s not until hours later though, once they’ve demolished Yamada’s boiled chicken, yakisoba and curry between them as well as two six packs of beer. Chinen brought along a bottle of whisky too, which is probably mostly to blame for Keito’s drunken state but Yamada knows better than to risk losing his inhibitions in present company so he sits, still nursing his first cup slowly.

Eventually, Keito’s singing turns to crying, because Keito is easily moved to tears even when sober. “I think it’s time somebody went to bed.” Chinen announces and Yamada nods, contemplating how wise it would be to down the rest of his liquor, but Chinen wafts a hand at him in dismissal and gets up himself. “You finish your drink, I’m getting sleepy anyway.”

Yamada watches in amusement as Chinen heaves Keito to his feet, all but dragging him into one of the tents. There’s some scuffling and some cursing but eventually the zipper slides closed and Yamada turns back to the fire.

Yuto is sitting across from him, staring down at the drink he’s swirling in his hand and the amused smile drops from Yamada’s face as he realises they’re alone.

It shouldn’t be a bad thing, they’re officially friends again after all, but Yamada still feels a strange kind of tension between them whenever they’re alone. In some ways it might even be worse, at least when they didn’t speak to each other Yamada knew where they stood. If they were alone back then Yuto would just put in headphones and drum along on his knees, Yamada would let his head loll forward and pretend to sleep, pretend he wasn’t watching Yuto from beneath his lashes.

Now – now things are more complicated. Now their relationship exists in some delicate balance between longing looks and painful memories, between trying to be friends and knowing they never really can be, not with everything else there’s been between them. Yamada finds himself trying to make the most of whatever tenuous bond they have while trying to forget what they could have had and all the while traversing eggshells lest he try Yuto’s infamously limited patience, and find himself in the middle of another cold war.

The first flake catches him off guard when it lands on his nose, he shakes his head to dislodge it, but as quickly as it went another falls into it’s place. Only then does he notice the speckles of white fluttering down around him.

“Chinen got his snow after all.” Yamada muses, a small smile forming on his lips as he reaches out his empty hand to catch the fragile flecks.

He hears the sharp draw of breath from across the fire but before he can turn to look Yuto says, almost breathlessly “Don’t move.” His first instinct is danger, a boar or maybe even a bear, but after the brief sound of Yuto riffling through his bag, Yamada hears the click of a camera shutter.

With an eye-roll at Yuto, he lets himself relax a little, his hand returning to his lap as he looks up into the thickening fall of powdery snow, paying no mind to the way Yuto moves around him, changing the angle and the distance of the camera. At one point he reaches out to move a fuzzy white strand of hair and then he drops to his knees right beside Yamada, his camera raising once again.

It’s only when the sound stops that Yamada turns to face him, the expression on Yuto’s face almost startling him. Yuto’s gaze is boring into him, his ardent eyes shimmering in the firelight as a soft yet rueful smile twists his lips. “God you’re beautiful” he whispers, a furrow forming between his eyebrows. “You’re so beautiful it hurts to breathe.”

It’s not the first time Yuto has called him beautiful, not by a long shot, he’s always making comments in magazines about Yamada being his favourite model but it’s the first time he’s said it to Yamada so directly in ten years. It’s the first time he’s looked so sincere, so tormented.

Before Yamada can even figure out how he’s supposed to respond, Yuto leans up, leans in, one last desperate, searching look into Yamada’s eyes before Yuto’s close and their lips press together. 

It’s not the first time Yuto has tried to kiss him either, but every other time it has been playful, just a joke. The way Yuto’s lips are moving against his now is definitely not a joke. 

He should pull away, he knows he should, but Yuto’s lips feel so warm and soft against his, so comforting. Instead of pulling away he finds himself kissing back, and Yuto gasps into his mouth as his hand moves up into Yamada’s hair, earmuffs knocked aside as fingers brush away the snow-soaked locks from his face before curling into the short strands at the back of his head, holding him close. Yamada feels himself slipping, sinking, muscle memory and a desire long-denied trying to drag him down. 

With a gasp of his own he shoves Yuto back, tearing himself away from Yuto’s mouth. What was that he was thinking earlier about inhibitions?

Yuto is staring at the glistening ground, his ragged breath rising into the air between them. “Sorry.” he says, follows it with a forced little chuckle. “I think I’ve had too much to drink...I should go to bed...” For one brief moment his eyes rise to meet Yamada’s, a question in them, hope.

Yamada watches it fizzle out as he nods, still a little breathless himself as he says “Goodnight.”

Yuto isn’t drunk. He’s had a few drinks sure but Yamada has seen him drunk and this isn’t it, he doesn’t even stumble as he makes his way to the empty tent. This is something else.

He turns back to the fire, watching the flames idly as he tries to wrap his head around what just happened, to make sense of the way Yuto was looking at him, the way Yuto kissed him. 

There was a time that Yamada would have given anything to feel Yuto’s lips against his again, he would have given Yuto the centre position back in a pinch if it was something he could have given, if he’d have known that was what had turned Yuto so viciously against him. Too many years of bitter resentment it had taken, plus more alcohol than advisable, and Chinen begging, as his birthday gift, to please, please talk it out.

That had been what had started it at least, Yuto had finally confessed that night, that was the thing that made him close himself off, to push Yamada away and stew in his own misery. Yamada had tried to fight it at first but, as they say, hate breeds hate. He can’t remember which of them had said it first on Chinen’s birthday, but he knows that they’d both meant it.

He realises only when he shudders in the breeze, that while he was lost in thought, the fire had died out. The last thing he wants to do is wake Yuto to ask for the fire-starter so instead he slides out of his seat onto the freshly lain carpet of snow and jabs at the smouldering logs with the fire poker, breaking them apart, pushing away the charred, spent wood to expose the still burning embers beneath. He doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing, but he watched Yuto in admiration as he got the fire going earlier so he copies the steps again. He takes a handful of the driest sticks he can find from the pile they prepared and sets them atop the glowing wood, blowing gently to emblazon them until the sticks catch and are swallowed in fresh flames. He watches, pleased with himself as they burn and then he adds progressively bigger logs until he once again has a roaring fire.

With his cup of whisky in hand again, he sits back to admire his work, but as he takes a sip – and he’ll blame the whisky entirely – he finds the poetry in it. Even though the flame was almost out, all it took was a little careful tending to bring it back to life.

He finds himself looking back the tent that Yuto disappeared into. The embers are still there, he feels them burning in his chest every time he looks at Yuto, but he knows they’re suffocating beneath all the years of anger and hurt, all of the stony looks and the words they can’t take back. With a little work though, with a little courage to brave the flames, maybe it wouldn’t be too late...

Yuto is still awake when Yamada crawls into the tent, his face illuminated by the screen of his camera. He looks up as Yamada enters and zips the tent back up, but his eyes return to the tiny screen as Yamada climbs into his icy sleeping bag, his thoughts still an uncertain mess.

“I got some really nice shots.” Yuto says after a while, his voice low like he wasn’t sure if Yamada was sleeping, but when Yamada hums he turns the screen around.

The picture on it is a nice shot, stunning even, even if it is a photo of him. It’s one of the ones by the campfire, the light of it soft and warm against his flushed cheek, his lips parted in a small smile. All around him tiny specks of white are floating, his eyes alight with wonder as he watches one land in his outstretched palm.

He feels kind of overwhelmed, it’s the kind of side of him that only Yuto can bring out. It could be that Yuto sees beauty in him like nobody else does, but it could also be the way that Yamada doesn’t mind Yuto taking his photo, likes it even. For the longest time, Yuto taking his photograph was the most frank kind of interaction they had.

For a while it’s quiet, the only sound the pressing of the the cameras buttons as Yuto cycles through the photographs again. “The thing I like so much about taking photographs.” Yuto says wistfully “They’re not just pictures, they’re snapshots of a moment in time. Sometimes when I look at them, I remember exactly where I was and what was happening around me, everything directly leading up to that one second and everything after it. I remember exactly how I felt, and for just a moment it’s like being back in it.”

He’s paused on a photo again, his thumb running over the small screen, it’s the one he showed Yamada a few minutes ago. Yamada swallows heavily and musters the courage to ask “And what about when you look at this one?”

Yuto lets out a long breath. “Whenever I look at this one I’ll remember woodsmoke and curry, and the feeling of being frozen on the outside and burning on the inside. I’ll remember the feeling of your damp hair between my fingers and the taste of whisky on your lips. And I’ll remember that you were kissing me too.”

He was, and against his better judgement, he finds himself wanting to do it again, to try stoking the fire to see if they can burn again. Against all the warnings going off inside his mind he steels himself to whisper “Yuto...do you love me?”.

Yuto turns to face him, the light from the camera still illuminating his face from where he rests it on the ground between them. He considers Yamada carefully, pain etched on his face and nods. “More than I can stand.”

Yamada rolls to face him too, feels the years fall away from them as the embers of his own love smoulder in his chest. “Yuto...can I stay in your bed tonight?” he asks.

Yuto smiles slowly, a mixture of gratitude and nostalgia shining in his eyes as he nods again. “Are you scared?”

“Terrified” Yamada admits as he climbs out of his sleeping bag and across the short distance to Yuto’s, he’s terrified of letting himself love Yuto again, he can still feel the scars on his heart from the last time. Still, when Yuto unzips his own sleeping bag, Yamada climbs in beside him, shuffling close enough to zip it up behind him. For a moment they just look at each other, their breath swirling like smoke in the cold air between them and then Yamada leans forward to press their lips together. 

Yuto exhales hard across his cheek, a small noise in the back of his throat as he moves his lips back against Yamada’s, soft at first but escalating quickly into the rough, open mouthed kisses that Yamada remembers from a lifetime ago, that part of him has longed for ever since.

He melts into it, following Yuto’s lead just like he always did, back then he would have followed Yuto to the ends of the earth. Yuto never lead him there though, never further than wandering hands and friction in their hips, grinding together beneath scratchy hotel sheets.

They’re not kids any more though. Yamada knows better now what that heat pooling low in his groin is, how to scratch that itch that Yuto always incited in him.

He pulls Yuto closer, kissing back just as hard, arms wrapping around him as he rolls over in the confines of the sleeping bag, urging Yuto on top of him, his legs shifting apart to let Yuto fall between them.

Yuto moans brokenly as he kisses across Yamada’s face, his nose cold but his mouth hot, his hands eager as they move between them peeling down zips and prying open buttons. He lets Yuto remove their clothes like layers of ash to reveal the hot skin beneath. His fingers flutter over Yamada’s body like gentle breath, blowing on embers, and Yamada feels himself ignite when Yuto finally slides inside him.

Their bodies move together, wrapping around each other, dancing like flames, consuming. Their mouths fuse together, over and and over, quieting their restrained moans and Yuto kisses him through it as the pleasure mounts then peaks, his body jerking as it engulfs him, spilling thickly into the small space between them. Yuto follows right after him, a sharp gasp of Yamada’s given name before he stills and empties deep inside. 

Yamada winces as Yuto pulls out, he’s going to be sticky and sore come morning but for tonight he can’t care. Tonight he rolls onto his side, Yuto slotting in behind him, familiar and comforting, as he pulls the sleeping bag tight around them. Yuto’s body heat and his whispered “I love you” keep him warm as he drifts to sleep.

When he wakes the next morning Yuto’s smile is brighter than the morning sun that’s trying to filter in through the fabric of the tent. It’s neither forced nor sad but burning with happiness, fuel to the fire still alight in Yamada’s chest.

The same can’t be said about the campfire outside. Overnight the fire has done it’s best to go out but between the two of them it doesn’t stand a chance and ten minutes later there’s the smell of cooking rice wafting through their small camp. It’s the smell that rouses Keito from his tent, groaning and clutching at his head, and Chinen follows shortly after, already humming Happy Birthday to himself.

There’s something smug about his expression as they discuss where they’re going to stop on the way home for Chinen’s official Birthday meal and then with an over dramatic rise of his eyebrows, he puts down his rice bowl and announces. “Come on then cowboys, time to saddle up.”


End file.
